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Counterrevolution 101

By Dave Fryett

13 February, 2011
Countercurrents.org

CNN's headline: "EGYPT IS FREE, MILITARY IN CHARGE."

The counterrevolution has begun. The carefully stage-managed anti-Mubarak palliative has reached its climax and is quickly declining into denoument. American media are describing the transfer of power to the Army as a "people-power revolution." Major broadcast media are in agreement, "now that the revolution is over," it's time for the military to step in and "restore order." Democracy has been won, the Army is in charge. Long live the Army! It's time for the demonstrators to return to their two-dollars-a-day misery.

The masters of criminal statecraft know how to do counterrevolution. It's essential for their survival. First, they have their marketing wing, the mass media, define the goals of popular uprisings in such a narrow way as to make them compatible with their commercial interests. This was done quite successfully vis-a-vis Tunisia and Egypt as viewers of cable news broadcasts, where most get their information, heard that these rebellions were prompted by the corruption of the respective ruling families. These men, Ben Ali and Mubarak, are expendable. They were highly paid CEO's who will continue to be well compensated for their service to capital as they live out their days enjoying the largesse of their corporate patrons. Identifying them as the problem makes their removal the solution. As Orwell wrote: "People believe what they are told that they believe." Keep telling the people in the streets ( and watching around the world ) that what they will be satisfied by Mubarak's ouster, maybe they will believe it.

From the moment Obama announced that he supported the demonstrators, his media assets began to describe Mubarak as a tyrant. Not a single "analyst" or think tank "expert" deviated from the script. For twenty-four hours a day we heard nothing but criticism. However well deserved it was, the demonization of the reigning factotum focused attention on him and his recalcitrance. The rebellion became a personal narrative, the Hosni Mubarak saga.

CNN reported that the "anti-terror" squad of the U.S. Marine Corps had arrived at the embassy in Cairo and the following day the pro-Mubarak forces emerge. From the minute they appear they are described as "hired thugs" and "goons." In an astonishing stroke of luck for American broadcasters, they seem to target English-speaking Egyptians. Many of whom would later appear adorned in bloody bandages to tell their tales for the benefit of Anglophone media.

We also received a report of pro-Mubarak forces "firing automatic weapons indiscriminately" into anti-Mubarak forces amassed in Liberation Square. MSNBC host, Tamara Hall, then added parenthetically that there was one fatality. These hired thugs are not good shots.

Most peculiar of all was the attack on CNN reporter Anderson Cooper. One would think that these pro-Mubarak goons would have been instructed to leave journalists alone for fear of a bad press. Yet they not only pummeled the celebrity broadcaster but did so on camera ( or rather, slightly off ). Cooper himself told us that he was punched in the head ten times. He was unmarked though. Mubarak's hooligan's are not very good punchers either.

Later that day Cooper broadcast from "a secret location." The battered reporter informed us that he had to keep the lights off for security's sake. He no doubt hoped we wouldn't notice that he was illuminated by flood lights. Apparently Mubarak's goons will not fire into hotel rooms from which live news feeds are being broadcast, even hired thugs have their etiquette.

Another curiosity is how pollsters managed their business in the middle of a revolution. In recent days "experts" from the Council on Foreign Relations, the Heritage foundation and other rightist think tanks have appeared on our television screens offering the results of "scientific" surveys. It is all the more remarkable when one considers that nearly ninety percent of Egyptians have no access to the internet, and more than half have no phones. How did they conduct these polls, and how accurate could they be? None of the "journalists" interviewing these experts saw fit to ask. The quoted numbers passed unchallenged.

Much of the spin seemed to involve Cooper. Launching the Pentagon's trial balloon, CNN's superstar reporter asked the shill Mohamed El Baradei, newly annointed by same as "the opposition leader," if he would consider running for President. "Only if it were a fair election" he replied, delivering his line with the required conviction. Who wishes to run for office as an opposition candidate in an unfair election one might wonder, but no matter, mission accomplished. The mere presence of the former IAEA chief as a candidate will now imbue that charade with undeserved authenticity.

The El Baradei psy-op came on the heels of the failed Omar "extraordinary rendition" Suleiman alleviant. It is he whom Those Who Own prefer to see enthroned. Suleiman is the Lavrenty Beria of modern Egypt. His appointment to the Vice Presidency by Mubarak, if indeed that decision was the dictator's, was doomed from the beginning. "I know [him]," former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, told Fox news. "He's a good man, a solid guy. He's an excellent choice to head up the new government." Unfortunately for Bolton and his bosses, the people of Egypt know Suleiman too. He is universally despised in his homeland. He is the COO of the world's most oppressive security state. It is under his direction that this ancient, sacred land was transformed into the world's torture facility. Whenever civil rights laws become a nuissance for security services around the world, they "render" their more troublesome cases over to Omar and his house of horrors on the Nile. Outsourced torture has become an Egyptian specialty, and Suleiman is hated for it.

Various organs of capital chipped in with timely contributions. The Director of the CIA, in the hours before Mubarak's speech, stated that there was a "strong likelihood" that the capital's puppet would step down. For America's head spook to issue such a statement is quite unusual, and a break with established procedure. The mystery deepened when Mubarak did not resign. Risibly, the egg-faced Director claimed that he had based his prognostication on media reports. The reason for this ruse may have been more than merely heightening the Mubarak drama, clearly he had some ulterior motive as his explanation is an obvious lie.

After Mubarak's departure, Switzerland, in a break with time-honored tradition and the letter of its own law, announced that Mubarak had 3.5 billion dollars in Swiss banks and that his accounts had been frozen. That nation's raison d'etre is to launder money. It exists to safeguard the profits and privacy of the world's criminal rich. Many a prosecution has been stymied by Swiss refusal to provide even the most basic information regarding deposits and depositors. That they were so forthcoming in this case speaks forcefully.

Next to certifying the Pentagon-brokered transfer of power from one military officer to another as a revolution, the biggest deception is the reporting we've been getting on the Egyptian Army. It was apparent that the directors of this made-for-TV melodrama intended that power should remain in the hands of the military. From the very beginning they were lauded. We have been treated to an endless stream of favorable images: soldiers sitting atop their tanks and hangin' with the protesters, soldiers thwarting pro-Mubarak violence, military brass honoring the fallen. We have been told that the institution in Egypt which the people respect most is their Army.

The Army has ruled Egypt since 1952. Since 1970, when Gamal Abdel Nasser died under mysterious circumstances and was succeeded by Anwar Sadat, Egypt has followed the neoliberal path mandated by the forces which put the new head of state in office. From that day to this the efforts of the Egyptian people to free themselves from the ravages of free markets have been obstructed by the military. The army is the institution that has kept Mubarak in power. Egypt has been under martial law for thirty years, this is what has led to the unrest. The Army isn't the solution, it's the problem. For there to be a real revolution, it must be overthrown.

While the plutocrats seem thus far to have held the Egyptian rebellion in check, it has been at some cost. The vile, racist filth to which we are subjected in the West about Arab "backwardness" will henceforth be useless. Middle East "experts" will no longer be able to contend that Arab culture is "tribal," and "primitive," and "pre-Enlightenment," and that without the presence of U.S. military bases in those "unstable" lands the Arab savages would soon kill each other off in an orgy of sectarian violence.

Imperialist elements are already taking credit for the revolution. They claim it is a result of the [George W.] Bush Freedom Agenda; that the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is what emboldened the Egyptian masses to revolt. Comical as it is, we'll be hearing it quite often in the next few years. This apparently will be the new canard for continued occupation.

The Owners of our imprisoned planet have selected General Muhamed Hussein Tantawi to be their new viceroy in Egypt. The task of this human prophylactic, much like Barack Obama's here in the U.S., is to create the chimera of change while seeing to it that none occurs. A lot of inspiring rhetoric will ensue; monuments will be built to the martyrs; the non-compliant will quietly disappear; some meaningless reforms will be enacted. The revolution will be foiled not by suppression, but by etiolation.

But yet there is something in the air these days. The contagion of hope is wafting out of Egypt and sweeping across land and sea. I had occasion to be in downtown Seattle this morning. There was an unmistakable feeling of victory. Everyone was talking about revolution. A locally famous beggar sported a flower in her hair, as I reached into my pocket for the usual contribution, I asked about it. "Egypt," she snarled, "of course." Later my girlfriend and I went to our favorite spot in Chinatown for dim sum. Our waitress, who struggles with English, asked me for the latest news from Cairo. "I happy for them. Next maybe Hu Jintao."

For those who work for justice, the people of Egypt have given us the thrill of a lifetime. It is not likely that the new government of Egypt will be much different from its predecessor, but that doesn't mean that the efforts of our Egyptian brothers and sisters have been in vain. The wretched of the Earth have seen what is possible. Power has been shown to be powerless in the face of determined mass opposition. And in every corner of our world the immiserated rejoice, because they know the day of liberation draws near.

 


 




 


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